 CHAPTER IV. THE CRIMINOLOGIST'S CLUB But who are they, raffles, and where's their house? There's no such club on the list in Whitaker! The criminologists, my dear bunny, are too few for a local habitation, and to select to tell their name and gath. They are merely so many solemn students of contemporary crime, who meet and dine periodically at each other's clubs or houses. But why in the world should they ask us to dine with them? And I brandished the invitation which had brought me hot-foot to the Albany. It was from the right honourable the Earl of Thornby, K.G., and it requested the honour of my company at dinner, at Thornby House, Park Lane, to meet the members of the criminologist's club. That in itself was a disturbing compliment. Judge then of my dismay on learning that raffles had been invited too. They have got it into their heads, said he, that the gladiatorial element is the curse of most modern sport. They tremble especially for the professional gladiator, and they want to know whether my experience tallies with their theory. So they say. They quote the case of a league player, sus per coal, and any number of suicides. It really is rather in my public line. In yours, if you like, but not in mine, said I. No raffles, they've got their eye on us both, and mean to put us under the microscope, or they never would have pitched on me. Raffles smiled on my perturbation. I almost wish you were right, Bunny. It would be even better fun than I mean to make it as it is, but it may console you to hear that it was I who gave them your name. I told them you were a far keener criminologist than myself. I am delighted to hear they have taken my hint, and that we are to meet at their gruesome board. If I accept, said I, with the austerity he deserved. If you don't, rejoined raffles, you'll miss some sport after both our hearts. Think of it, Bunny. These fellows mean to wallow in all the latest crimes. We wallow with them as though we knew more about it than themselves. Perhaps we don't, for few criminologists have a soul above murder, and I quite expect to have the privilege of lifting the discussion into our own higher walk. They shall give them morbid minds to the fine art of burgling for a change. And while we're about it, Bunny, we may as well extract their opinion of our noble selves. As authors, as collaborators, we will sit with the flower of our critics and find our own level in the expert eye. It'll be a pecan't experience, if not an invaluable one, if we are sailing too near the wind, we are sure to hear about it, and can trim our yards accordingly. Moreover, we shall get a very good dinner into the bargain, or our noble host will belie a European reputation. Do you know him? I asked. We have a pavilion acquaintance when it suits my lord, replied raffles, chuckling. But I know all about him. He was president one year of the MCC, and we never had a better. He knows the game, though I believe he never played cricket in his life. But then he knows most things, and has never done any of them. He has never even married, and never opens his lips in the House of Lords. Yet they say there is no better brain in the August Assembly, and he certainly made us a wonderful speech last time the Australians were over. He has read everything, and, to his credit in these days, never written a line. All round he is a wail for theory and a sprat for practice, but he looks quite capable of both at crime. I now long to behold this remarkable peer in the flesh, and with the greater curiosity, since another of the things which he evidently never did was to have his photograph published for the benefit of the vulgar. I told raffles that I would dine with him at Lord Thornaby's, and he nodded as though I had not hesitated for a moment. I see now how deftly he had disposed of my reluctance. No doubt he had thought it all out before. His little speeches looked sufficiently premeditated as I set them down at the dictates of an excellent memory. Let it, however, be borne in mind that raffles did not talk exactly like a raffles' book. He said the things, but he did not say them in so many consecutive breaths. They were punctuated by puffs from his eternal cigarette, and the punctuation was often in the nature of a line of asterisks, while he took a silent turn up and down his room. Nor was he ever more deliberate than when he seemed most nonchalant and spontaneous. I came to see it in the end, but these were early days, in which he was more plausible to me than I can hope to render him to another human being. And I saw a good deal of raffles just then. It was, in fact, the one period at which I can remember his coming round to see me more frequently than I went round to him. Of course he would come at his own odd hours, often just as one was dressing to go out and dine, and I can even remember finding him there when I returned, for I had long since given him a key of the flat. It was the inhospitable month of February, and I can recall more than one cozy evening when we discussed anything and everything but our own malpractices. Indeed, there were none to discuss just then. Raffles, on the contrary, was showing himself with some industry in the most respectable society, and by his advice I used the club more than ever. There is nothing like it at this time of year, said he. In the summer I have my cricket to provide me with decent employment in the sight of men. Keep yourself before the public from morning to night, and they'll never think of you in the still small hours. Our behaviour, in fine, had so long been irreproachable that I rose without misgivings on the morning of Lord Thornaby's dinner to the other criminologists and guests. My chief anxiety was to arrive under the aegis of my brilliant friend, and I had begged him to pick me up on his way, but at five minutes to the appointed hour there was no sign of raffles or his cab. We were bitten at a quarter to eight for eight o'clock, so after all I had to hurry off alone. Fortunately, Thornaby House is almost at the end of my street that was, and it seemed to me another fortunate circumstance that the house stood back, as it did and does, in its own august courtyard. For as I was about to knock, a handsome came twinkling in behind me, and I drew back hoping it was raffles at the last moment. It was not, and I knew it and timed a melt from the porch, and wait yet another minute in the shadows, since others were as late as I, and out jumped these others, chattering in stage whispers as they paid their cab. Thornaby has a bet about it with Freddie Veriker, who can't come tonight, I hear, of course it won't be lost or won tonight, but the dear man thinks he's been invited as a cricketer. I don't believe he's the other thing, said a voice as brusque as the first was bland. I believe it's all bunkum, I wish I didn't, but I do. I think you'll find it's more than that. Rejoined the other as the doors opened and swallowed the pair. I flung out limp hands and smote the air. Raffles bidden to what he had well called this gruesome board. Not as a cricketer, but clearly as a suspected criminal. Raffles wrong all the time, and I write for once in my original apprehension. And still no raffles in sight, no raffles to warn, no raffles and the clock striking eight. Well, I may shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that the striking clock struck out all power of thought and feeling, and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual sensation. On the other hand, I was never more alive to the purely objective impressions of any hour of my existence. And of them the memory is startling to this day. I hear my mad knock at the double doors. They fly open in the middle, and it is like some sumptuous and solemn rite. A long slice of silken-legged lackey is seen on either hand. A very prelate of a butler bows a benediction from the sanctuary steps. I breathe more freely when I reach a book-lined library, where a mere handful of men do not overflow the Persian rug before the fire. One of them is Raffles, who is talking to a large man with the brow of a demigod and the eyes and jowl of a degenerate bulldog. And this is our noble host. Lord Thornaby stared at me with inscrutable solidity as we shook hands, and at once handed me over to a tall ungainly man, whom he addressed as Ernest, but whose surname I never learned. Ernest, in turn, introduced me, with a shy and clumsy courtesy, to the two remaining guests. They were the pair who had driven up in the handsome. One turned out to be Kingsmill QC. The other I knew at a glance from his photographs as Parrington, the backwood's novelist. They were admirable foils to each other, the barrister being plump and dapper, with a Napoleonic cast of countenance, and the author, one of the shaggiest dogs I have ever seen in evening clothes. Neither took much stock of me, but both had an eye on Raffles, as I exchanged a few words with each in turn. Dinner, however, was immediately announced, and the six of us had soon taken our places round a brilliant little table, stranded in a great dark room. I had not been prepared for so small a party, and at first I felt relieved. If the worst came to the worst, I was fool enough to say in my heart they were but two to one. But I was soon sighing for that safety which the adage associates with numbers. We were far too few for the confidential duolog with one's neighbor, in which I at least would have taken refuge from the perils of a general conversation. And the general conversation soon resolved itself into an attack, so subtly concerted and so artistically delivered that I could not conceive how Raffles should ever know it for an attack, and that against himself, or how to warn him of his peril. But to this day I am not convinced that I also was honored by the suspicions of the club. It may have been so, and they may have ignored me for the bigger game. It was Lord Thornaby himself who fired the first shot over the very sherry. He had Raffles on his right hand and the back woodsmen of letters on his left. Raffles was hemmed in by the lawn his right, while I sat between Parrington and Ernest, who took the foot of the table, and seemed a sort of feudatory cadet of the noble house. But it was the motley lot of us that my lord addressed as he sat back blinking his baggy eyes. Mr. Raffles, said he, has been telling me about that poor fellow who suffered the extreme penalty last March. A great end, gentlemen, a great end. It is true that he had been unfortunate enough to strike a jugular vein, but his own end should take its place among the most glorious traditions of the gallows. You tell them, Mr. Raffles, it will be as new to my friends as it was to me. I tell the tale as I heard it last time I played at Trent Bridge. It was never in the papers, I believe, said Raffles gravely. You may remember the tremendous excitement over the test matches out in Australia at the time. It seems that the result of the crucial game was expected on the condemned man's last day on earth, and he couldn't rest until he knew it. We pulled it off if you recollect, and he said it would make him swing happy. Tell him what else, he said, cried Lord Thornaby, rubbing his pudgy hands. The chaplain remonstrated with him on his excitement over a game at such a time, and the convict is said to have replied, Why, it's the first thing they'll ask me at the other end of the drop. The story was new even to me, but I had no time to appreciate its points. My concern was to watch its effect upon the other members of the party. Ernest, on my left, doubled up with laughter, and tittered and shook for several minutes. My other neighbor, more impressionable by temperament, winced first, and then worked himself into a state of enthusiasm which culminated in an assault upon his shirt cuff with a joiner's pencil. Kingsmill QC, beaming tranquilly on Raffles, seemed the one least impressed, until he spoke. I'm glad to hear that, he remarked in a high-bland voice. I thought that man would die game. Did you know anything about him, then? inquired Lord Thornaby. I led for the crown, replied the barrister with a twinkle. You might almost say that I measured the poor man's neck. The point must have been quite unpremeditated. It was not the less effective for that. Lord Thornaby looked to scance at the callous silk. It was some moments before Ernest tittered and Parrington felt for his pencil. And in the interim I had made short work of my hawk, though it was Johannesburger. As for Raffles, one had but to see his horror to feel how completely he was off his guard. In itself I have heard it was not a sympathetic case. Was the remark with which he broke the general silence? Not a bit. That must have been a comfort for you, Raffles said dryly. It would have been to me, vowed our author, while the barrister merely smiled. I should have been very sorry to have had a hand in hanging Peckham and Solomon's the other day. Why Peckham and Solomon's? inquired my lord. They never meant to kill that old lady. But they strangled her in her bed with her own pillow case. I don't care, said the uncouth scribe. They didn't break in for that. They never thought of scragging her. The foolish old person would make a noise, and one of them tied too tight. I call it jolly bad luck on them. Unquiet, harmless, well-behaved thieves, added Lord Thornaby, in the unobtrusive exercise of their humble avocation. And as he turned to Raffles with his puffy smile I knew that we had reached that part of the programme which had undergone rehearsal. It had been perfectly timed to arrive with the champagne, and I was not afraid to signify my appreciation of that small mercy. But Raffles laughed so quickly at his lordship's humour, and yet with such unnatural restraint as to leave no doubt that he had taken kindly to my own old part, and was playing the innocent inimitably in his turn, by reason of his very innocence. It was a poetic judgment on old Raffles, and in my momentary enjoyment of the novel situation I was able to enjoy some of the good things of this rich man's table. The saddle of mutton more than justified its place in the menu, but it had not spoiled me for my wing of pheasant, and I was even looking forward to a sweet, when a further remark from the literary light recalled me from the table to its talk. But I suppose, said he to Kingsmill, it's many a burglar you've restored to his friends and his relations. Let us say many a poor fellow who has been charged with burglary, replied the cheery QC. It's not quite the same thing, you know, nor is many the most accurate word. I never touch criminal work in town. It's the only kind I should care about, said the novelist eating jelly with a spoon. I quite agree with you, our host chimed in, and of all the criminals one might be called upon to defend, give me the enterprising burglar. It must be the breeziest branch of the business, remarked Raffles, while I held my breath. But his touch was as light as Gossamer, and his artless manner a triumph of even his incomparable art. Raffles was alive to the danger at last. I saw him refuse more champagne even as I drained my glass again. But it was not the same danger to us both. Raffles had no reason to feel surprise or alarm at such a turn in a conversation frankly devoted to criminology. It must have been as inevitable to him as it was sinister to me, with my fortuitous knowledge of the suspicions that were entertained. And there was little to put him on his guard in the touch of his adversaries, which was only less light than his own. I'm not very fond of Mr. Sykes, announced the barrister, like a man who had got his Q. But he was prehistoric, rejoined my lord. A lot of blood has flowed under the razor since the days of sweet William. True, we have had peace, said Parrington, and launched out into such glowing details of that criminal's last moments that I began to hope the diversion might prove permanent. But Lord Thornaby was not to be denied. William and Charles are both dead monarchs, said he. The reigning king in their department is the fellow who gutted poor Danby's place in Bond Street. There was a guilty silence on the part of the three conspirators, for I had long since persuaded myself that Ernest was not in their secret, and then my blood froze. I know him well, said Raffles, looking up. Lord Thornaby stared at him in consternation. The smile on the Napoleonic countenance of the barrister looked forced and frozen for the first time during the evening. Our author, who was nibbling cheese from a knife, left a bead of blood upon his beard. The feudal Ernest alone met the occasion with a hearty titter. What? cried my lord. You know the thief. I wish I did, rejoined Raffles chuckling. No, Lord Thornaby. I only meant the jeweler Danby. I go to him when I want a wedding present. I heard three deep breaths drawn as one before I drew my own. Rather a coincidence, observed our host dryly, for I believe you also know the Milchester people, where Lady Melrose had her necklace stolen a few months afterward. I was staying there at the time, said Raffles eagerly. No snob was ever quicker to boast of basking in the smile of the great. We believe it to be the same man, said Lord Thornaby, speaking apparently for the criminologist's club, and with much less severity of voice. I only wish I could come across him, continued Raffles heartily. He's a criminal much more to my mind than your murderers who swear on the drop or talk cricket in the condemned cell. He might be in the house now, said Lord Thornaby, looking Raffles in the face. But his manner was that of an actor in an unconvincing part, in a mood to play it gamely to the bitter end. And he seemed embittered, as even a rich man may be in the moment of losing a bet. What a joke if he were, cried the Wild West writer. Absidoman, murmured Raffles in better taste. Still, I think you'll find it's a favorite time, argued Kingsmill QC. And it would be quite in keeping with the character of this man so far as it is known, to pay a little visit to the president of the criminologist's club, and to choose the evening on which he happens to be entertaining the other members. There was more conviction in this sally than in that of our noble host, but this I attributed to the trained and skilled dissimilation of the bar. Lord Thornaby, however, was not to be amused by the elaboration of his own idea, and it was with some asperity that he called upon the butler, now solemnly superintending the removal of the cloth. Leg it. Just send upstairs to see if all the doors are open and the rooms are in proper order. That's an awful idea of yours, Kingsmill, or of mine. Added my lord, recovering the courtesy of his order, by an effort that I could follow. We should look fools. I don't know which of us it was, by the way, who seduced the rest from the mainstream of blood into this burglarious backwater. Are you familiar with DeQuincy's masterpiece on murder as a fine art, Mr. Raffles? I believe I once read it. Replied Raffles doubtfully. You must read it again, pursued the earl. It is the last word on a great subject. All we can hope to add is some baleful illustration or bloodstained footnote not unworthy of DeQuincy's text. Well, leg it. The venerable butler stood wheezing at his elbow. I had not hitherto observed that the man was an asthmatic. I beg your lordships pardon, but I think your lordship must have forgotten. The voice came in rude gasps, but words of reproach could scarcely have achieved a finer delicacy. Forgotten, leg it. Forgotten what may I ask? Locking your lordships, dressing your door behind your lordship, my lord, stuttered the unfortunate leg it, in the short spurts of a winded man, a few stratorious syllables at a time. Ben, up myself, my lord, bedroom door, dressing room door, both locked inside. But by this time the noble master was in worse case than the man. His fine forehead was a tangle of livid cords, his baggy jowl filled out like a balloon. In another second he had abandoned his place as our host and fled the room, and in yet another we had forgotten ourselves as his guests and rushed headlong at his heels. Raffles was as excited as any of us now, he outstripped us all. The cherubic little lawyer and I had a fine race for the last place, but one which I secured, while the panting butler and his satellites brought up a respectful rear. It was our unconventional author, however, who was the first to volunteer his assistants in advice. No use pushing, Thornaby, cried he. If it's been done with a wedge in Gimlet you may smash the door, but you'll never force it. Is there a ladder in the place? There is a rope ladder somewhere in case of fire, I believe, said my lord vaguely, as he rolled a critical eye over our faces. Where is it kept, leg it? William will fetch it, my lord. And a pair of noble calves went flashing to the upper regions. What's the good of bringing it down? cried Parrington, who had thrown back to the wilds in his excitement. Let him hang it out of the window above your own, and let me climb down and do the rest. I'll undertake to have one or the other of these doors open in two twos. The fastened doors were at right angles on the landing, which we filled between us. Lord Thornaby smiled grimly on the rest of us, when he had nodded and dismissed the author like a hound from the leash. It's a good thing we know something about our friend Parrington, said my lord. He takes more kindly to all this than I do, I can tell you. It's gris to his mill, said Raffles charitably. Exactly. We shall have the whole thing in his next book. I hope to have it at the old Bailey first, remarked Kingsmill QC. Refreshing to find a man of letters such a man of action, too. It was Raffles who said this, and the remark seemed rather trite for him. But in the tone there was a something that just caught my private ear. And for once I understood. The officious attitude of Parrington, without being seriously suspicious in itself, was admirably calculated to put a previously suspected person in a grateful shade. This literary adventurer had elbowed Raffles out of the limelight. And gratitude for the service was what I had detected in Raffles's voice. No need to say how grateful I felt myself. But my gratitude was shot with flashes of unwanted insight. Parrington was one of those who suspected Raffles, or at all events, one who was in the secret of those suspicions. What if he had traded on the suspect's presence in the house? What if he were a deep villain himself? And the villain of this particular piece? I had made up my mind about him, and that in a tithe of the time I take to make it up as a rule, when we heard my man in the dressing room. He greeted us with an impudent shout. In a few moments the door was open, and there stood Parrington, flushed and dishevelled, with a gimlet in one hand and a wedge in the other. Within was a scene of eloquent disorder. Drawers had been pulled out and now stood on end, their contents heaped upon the carpet. Wardrobe doors stood open, empty stud cases strewed the floor. A clock tied up in a towel had been tossed into a chair at the last moment. But a long tin lid protruded from an open cupboard in one corner, and one had only to see Lord Thornaby's rye face behind the lid to guess that it was bent over a somewhat empty tin trunk. What a rum lot to steal! said he, with a twitch of humor at the corners of his canine mouth. My pierce robes, with coronet complete. We rallied around him in a seemly silence. I thought our scribe would put in his word, but even he either feigned or felt a proper awe. You may say it was a rum place to keep him, continued Lord Thornaby. But where would you, gentlemen, stable your white elephants? And these were elephants as white as snow, by stove. I'll job them for the future. And he made merrier over his loss than any of us could have imagined the minute before. But the reason dawned on me a little later, when we were all trooped downstairs, leaving the police in possession of the theatre of crime. Lord Thornaby linked arms with raffles as he led the way. His step was lighter, his gaiety no longer sardonic, his very looks had improved. And I divined the load that had been lifted from the hospitable heart of our host. I only wish, said he, that this brought us any nearer to the identity of the gentleman we were discussing at dinner. For, of course, we owe it to all our instincts to assume that it was he. I wonder, settled raffles with a foolhardy glance at me. But I am sure of it, my dear sir, cried my lord. The audacity is his and his alone. I look no further than the fact of his honouring me on the one night of the year when I endeavour to entertain my brother criminologists. That's no coincidence, sir, but a deliberate irony, which would have occurred to no other criminal mind in England. You may be right. Raffles had the sense to say this time, though I flattered myself it was my face that made him. What is still more certain, resumed our host, is that no other criminal in the world would have crowned so delicious a conception with so perfect an achievement. I feel sure the inspector will agree with us. The policeman in command had knocked and been admitted to the library as Lord Thornaby spoke. I didn't hear what you said, my lord. Merely that the perpetrator of this amusing outrage can be no other than the swell mobsman who relieved Lady Melrose of her necklace and poor Danby of half his stock a year or two ago. I believe your lordship has hit the nail on the head. The man who took the Thimbley diamonds and returned them to Lord Thimbley, you know? Perhaps he'll treat your lordship the same. Not he. I don't mean to cry over my spilt milk. I only wish the fellow joy of all he had time to take. Anything fresh upstain, by the way? Yes, my lord. The robbery took place between a quarter past eight and the half hour. How on earth do you know? The clock that was tied up in the towel had stopped at twenty past. Have you interviewed my man? I have, my lord. He was in your lordship's room until close on the quarter, and all was as it should be when he left it. Then do you suppose the burglar was hiding in the house? It's impossible to say, my lord. He's not in the house now, for he could only be in your lordship's bedroom or dressing room, and we have searched every inch of both. Lord Thornaby turned to us when the inspector had retreated, caressing his peaked cap. I told him to clear up these points first. He explained, jerking his head toward the door. I had reason to think my man had been neglecting his duties up there. I am glad to find myself mistaken. I ought to have been no less glad to see my own mistake. My suspicions of our officious author were thus proved to have been as wild as himself. I owed the man no grudge, and yet in my human heart I felt vaguely disappointed. My theory had gained colour from his behaviour ever since he had admitted us to the dressing room. It had changed all at once from the familiar to the morose. And only now was I just enough to remember that Lord Thornaby, having tolerated those familiarities as long as they were connected with useful service, had administered a relentless snub the moment that service had been well and truly performed. But if Parrington was exonerated in my mind, so also was Raffles reinstated in the regard of those who had entertained a far graver and more dangerous hypothesis. It was a miracle of good luck, a coincidence among coincidences, which had whitewashed him in their sight at the very moment when they were straining the expert eye to sift him through and through. But the miracle had been performed, and its effect was visible in every face and audible in every voice. I accept Ernest, who could never have been in the secret. Moreover, that gay criminologist had been palpably shaken by his first little experience of crime. But the other three vied among themselves to do honour where they had done injustice. I heard Kingsmill QC telling Raffles the best time to catch him at chambers, and promising a seat in court for any trial he might ever like to hear. Parrington spoke of a presentation set of his books, and in doing homage to Raffles made his peace with our host. As for Lord Thornaby, I did overhear the name of the Athenium Club, a reference to his friends on the committee, and a whisper as I thought of Rule Two. The police were still in possession when we went our several ways, and it was all that I could do to drag Raffles up to my rooms, though as I have said, they were just round the corner. He consented at last as a lesser evil than talking of the burglary in the street. And in my rooms I told him of his late danger and my own dilemma, of the few words I had overheard in the beginning, of the thin ice on which he had cut fancy figures without a crack. It was all very well for him. He had never realized his peril, but let him think of me listening, watching, yet unable to lift a finger, unable to say one warning word. Raffles suffered me to finish, but a weary sigh followed the last symmetrical whiff of a sullivan which he flung into my fire before he spoke. No, I won't have another thank you. I'm going to talk to you, Bunny. Do you really suppose I didn't see through these wise acres from the first? I flatly refused to believe he had done so before that evening. Why had he never mentioned his idea to me? It had been quite the other way as I indignantly reminded Raffles. Did he mean me to believe that he was the man to thrust his head into the lion's mouth for fun? And what point would there be in dragging me there to see the fun? I might have wanted you, Bunny. I very nearly did. For my face? It has been my fortune before tonight, Bunny. It has also given me more confidence than you are likely to believe at this time of day. You stimulate me more than you think. Your gallery and your prompter's box in one? Capital, Bunny. But it was no joking matter with me either, my dear fellow. It was touch-and-go at the time. I might have called on you at any moment, and it was something to know I should not have called in vain. But what to do, Raffles? Fight our way out in bolt. He answered with a mouth that meant it, and a fine, gay glitter of the eyes. I shot out of my chair. You don't mean to tell me you had a hand in the job. I had the only hand in it, my dear Bunny. Nonsense. You were sitting at the table at the time. No. But you may have taken some other fellow into the show. I always thought you would. One's quite enough, Bunny. Said Raffles dryly. He leaned back in his chair and took out another cigarette. And I accepted yet another from his case. For it was no use losing one's temper with Raffles. And his incredible statement was not, after all, to be ignored. Of course, I went on. If you really had brought off this thing on your own, I should be the last to criticize your means of reaching such an end. You have not only scored off a far superior force, which had laid itself out to score off you, but you have put them in the wrong about you, and they'll eat out of your hand for the rest of their days. But don't ask me to believe that you've done all this alone. By George, I cried in a sudden wave of enthusiasm. I don't care how you've done it, or who has helped you. It's the biggest thing you ever did in your life. And I certainly had never seen Raffles look more radiant or better pleased with the world and himself, or nearer that elation which he usually left to me. Then you shall hear all about it, Bunny, if you'll do what I ask you. Ask away, old chap, and the things done. Switch off the electric lights. All of them? I think so. There, then. Now go to the back window and up with the blind. Well? I'm coming to you. Splendid. I never had a look so late as this. It's the only window left light in the house. His cheek against the pane he was pointing slightly downward and very much a slant through a long lane of muse to a little square light like a yellow tile at the end. But I had opened the window and leaned out before I saw it for myself. You don't mean to say that's Thornaby House? I was not familiar with the view from my back windows. Of course I do, you rabbit. Have a look through your own race-glass. It has been the most useful thing of all. But before I had the glass in focus, more scales had fallen from my eyes. And now I knew why I had seen so much of Raffles these last few weeks, and why he had always come between seven and eight o'clock in the evening and waited at this very window with these very glasses at his eyes. I saw through them sharply now. The one lighted window pointed out by Raffles came tumbling into the dark circle of my vision. I could not see into the actual room, but the shadows of those within were quite distinct on the lowered blind. I even thought a black thread still dangled against the square of light. It was, it must be, the window to which the intrepid Parrington had descended from the one above. Exactly. Said Raffles an answer to my exclamation. And that's the window I have been watching these last few weeks. By daylight you can see the whole lot above the ground floor on this side of the house. And by good luck one of them is the room in which the master of the house arrays himself in all his nightly glory. It was easily spotted by watching at the right time. I saw him shaved one morning before you were up. In the evening his valet stays behind to put things straight. And that has been the very mischief. In the end I had to find out something about the man and wire to him from his girlfriend to meet her outside at eight o'clock. Of course he pretends he was at his post at the time, that I forsaw, and did the poor fellow's work before my own. I folded and put away every garment before I permitted myself to rag the room. I wonder you had time. It took me one more minute and it put the clock on exactly fifteen. By the way I did that literally of course, in the case of the clock they found. It's an old dodge, to stop a clock and alter the time. But you must admit that it looked as though one had wrapped it up already to cart away. There was thus any amount of prima facie evidence of the robbery having taken place when we were all at table. As a matter of fact Lord Thornaby left his dressing room one minute, his valet followed him the minute after, and I entered the minute after that. Through the window? To be sure. I was waiting below in the garden. You have to pay for your garden and town in more ways than one. You know the wall of course, and that jolly old pasta? The lock was beneath contempt. But what about the window? It's on the first floor, isn't it? Raffles took up the cane which he had laid down with his overcoat. It was a stout bamboo with a polished ferrule. He unscrewed the ferrule and shook out of the cane a diminishing series of smaller canes, exactly like a child's fishing rod, which I afterward found to have been their former state. A double hook of steel was now produced and quickly attached to the tip of the top joint. Then Raffles undid three buttons of his waistcoat and lapped round and round his waist was the finest of Manila ropes, with the neatest of foot-loops at regular intervals. Is it necessary to go any further? Asked Raffles when he had unwound the rope. This end is made fast to that end of the hook. The other half of the hook fits over anything that comes its way, and you leave your rod dangling while you swarm up your line. Of course you must know what you've got to hook on to, but a man who has had a porcelain bath fixed in his dressing-room is the man for me. The pipes were all outside and fixed to the wall in just the right place. You see, I had made a reconnaissance by day in addition to many by night. It would hardly have been worth while constructing my ladder on chants. So you made it on purpose? My dear Bunny, said Raffles as he wound the hemp girdle round his waist once more. I never did care for ladder work, but I always said that if I ever used a ladder, it should be the best of its kind yet invented. This one may come in useful again. But how long did the whole thing take you? From mother earth to mother earth? About five minutes tonight, and one of those was spent doing another man's work. What? I cried. You mean to tell me you climbed up and down in and out and broke into that cupboard and that big tin box and wedged up the doors and cleared out with a pier's robes and all the rest of it in five minutes? Of course I don't and of course I didn't. Then what do you mean? And what did you do? Made two bites at the cherry-bunny. I had a dress rehearsal in the dead of last night, and it was then I took the swag. Our noble friend was snoring next door all the time. But the effort may still stand high among my small exploits, for I not only took all I wanted, but left the whole place exactly as I found it, and shut things after me like a good little boy. All that took a good deal longer. Tonight I had simply to rag the room a bit, sweep up some studs and links, and leave ample evidence of having boned those rotten robes tonight. That, if you come to think of it, was what you writing-chaps would call the quintessential QEF. I have not only shown these dear criminologists that I couldn't possibly have done this trick, but that there's some other fellow who could and did, and whom they've been perfect asses to confuse with me. You may figure me as gazing on raffles all this time in mutant-wrapped amazement, but I had long been past that pitch. If he had told me now that he had broken into the Bank of England or the Tower, I should not have disbelieved him for a moment. I was prepared to go home with him to the Albany and find the regalia under his bed, and I took down my overcoat as he put on his. But raffles would not hear of my accompanying him that night. No, my dear bunny, I am short of sleep and fed up with excitement. You may not believe it. You may look upon me as a plastered devil, but those five minutes you ought of were rather too crowded even for my taste. The dinner was nominally at a quarter to eight, and I don't mind telling you now that I counted on twice as long as I had. But no one came until twelve minutes to, and so our host took his time. I didn't want to be the last to arrive, and I was in the drawing-room five minutes before the hour. But it was a quicker thing than I care about when all is said. And his last word on the matter, as he nodded and went his way, may well be mine. For one need be no criminologist, much less a member of the criminologist's club, to remember what raffles did with the robes and coronet of the right honorable, the Earl of Thornaby, K. G. He did with them exactly what he might have been expected to do by the gentleman with whom he had foregathered. And he did it in a manner so characteristic of himself, as surely to remove from their minds the last aura of the idea that he and himself were the same person. Carter Patterson was out of the question, and any labelling or addressing to be avoided on obvious grounds. But raffles stabled the white elephants in the cloakroom at Charing Cross, and sent Lord Thornaby the ticket. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of A Thief in the Night This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Thief in the Night by E. W. Hornig. Chapter 5 The Field of Philippi Nipr Nasmyth had been head of our school when raffles was captain of cricket. I believe he owed his nickname entirely to the popular prejudice against a day-boy. And in view of the special reproach which the term carried in my time, as also of the fact that his father was one of the school trustees, partner in a banking firm of four resounding surnames and manager of the local branch, there can be little doubt that the stigma was undeserved. But we did not think so then, for Nasmyth was unpopular with high and low, and appeared to glory in the fact. A swollen conscience caused him to see and hear even more than was warranted by his position, and his uncompromising nature compelled him to act on whatsoever he heard or saw. A savage custodian of public morals he had in addition a perverse enthusiasm for lost causes, loved minority for its own sake, and untenable tenets for theirs. Such, at all events, was my impression of Nipr Nasmyth after my first term, which was also his last. I had never spoken to him, but I had heard him speak with extraordinary force and fervor in the school debates. I carried a clear picture of his unkempt hair, his unbrushed coat, his dominant spectacles, his dogmatic jaw. And it was I who knew the combination at a glance after years and years, when the fateful whims seized raffles to play once more in the old boys' match, and his will took me down with him to participate in the milder festivities of Founder's Day. It was, however, no ordinary occasion. The bison tenery loomed but a year ahead, and a movement was on foot to mark the epoch with an adequate statue of our pious Founder. A special meeting was to be held at the schoolhouse and raffles had been specially invited by the new headmaster, a man of his own standing, who had been in the eleven with him up at Cambridge. Raffles had not been near the old place for years, but I had never gone down since the day I left, and I will not dwell on the emotions which the once familiar journey awakened in my unworthy bosom. Paddington was alive with old boys of all ages, but very few of ours, if not as lively as we used to make it when we all landed back for the holidays. More of us had mustaches and cigarettes and loud ties. That was all. Yet, of the throng, though two or three looked twice or thrice at raffles, neither he nor I knew a soul until we had to change at the junction near our journey's end, then as I say, it was I who recognized Nipper Nasmith at sight. The man was own son of the boy we both remembered. He had grown a ragged beard and a mustache that hung about his face like a neglected creeper. He was stout and bent and older than his years, but he spurned the platform with a stamping stride which even I remembered in an instant, and which was enough for raffles before he saw the man's face. The Nipper it is, he cried. I could swear to that walk in a pantomime procession. See the independence in every step. That's his heel on the neck of the oppressor. It's the non-conformist conscience in baggy britches. I must speak to him, Bunny. There was a lot of good in the old Nipper, though he and I did bar each other. And in a moment he had accosted the man by the boy's nickname, obviously without thinking of an affront which few would have read in that hearty open face and hand. My name's Nasmith, snapped the other, standing upright to glare. Forgive me, said Raffles, undeterred. One remembers a nickname and forgets all it never used to mean. Shake hands, my dear fellow. I'm raffles. It must be fifteen years since we met. At least, replied Nasmith coldly, but he could no longer refuse Raffles his hand. So you're going down, he sneered, to this great gathering? And I stood listening at my distance, as though still in the middle fourth. Rather, cried Raffles. I'm afraid I've let myself lose touch, but I mean to turn over a new leaf. I suppose that isn't necessary in your case, Nasmith. He spoke with an enthusiasm rare indeed in him. It had grown upon Raffles in the train. The spirit of his boyhood had come rushing back at fifty miles an hour. He might have been following some honorable calling in town. He might have snatched this brief respite from a distinguished but exacting career. I am convinced that it was I alone who remembered at that moment the life we were really leading at that time. With me there walked this skeleton through every waking hour that was to follow. I shall endeavour not to refer to it again, yet it should not be forgotten that my skeleton was always there. It certainly is not necessary in my case, replied Nasmith, still as stiff as any poker. I happen to be a trustee. Of the school, like my father before me, I congratulate you, my dear fellow, cried the hearty Raffles, a younger Raffles than I had ever known in town. I don't know that you need, said Nasmith sourly. But it must be a tremendous interest, and the proof is that you're going down to this show, like all the rest of us. No, I'm not. I live there, you see. And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he ground his heel upon an unresponsive flagstone. But you're going to this meeting at the schoolhouse, surely? I don't know. If I do there may be squalls. I don't know what you think about this precious scheme, Raffles, but I... The ragged beards stuck out, set teeth showed through the wild moustache, and in a sudden outpouring we had his views. They were narrow and intemperate and perverse as any I'd heard him advocate as the firebrand of the debating society in my first term. But they were stated with all the old vim and venom. The mind of Nasmith had not broadened with the years, but neither had its natural force abated, nor that of his character either. He spoke with great vigor at the top of his voice. Soon we had a little crowd about us, but the tall collars and broad smiles of the younger, old boys did not deter our dowdy demagogue. Why spend money on a man who has been dead two hundred years? What good could it do him or the school? Besides, he was only technically our founder. He had not founded a great public school. He had founded a little country grammar school which had potted along for a century and a half. The great public school was the growth of the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of piety. Besides, he was only nominally pious. Nasmith had made researches, and he knew. And why throw good money after a bad man? Are there many of your opinion? Inquired raffles when the agitator paused for breath, and Nasmith beamed on us with flashing eyes. Not one to my knowledge as yet, said he. But we shall see after tomorrow night. I hear it's to be quite an exceptional gathering this year. Let us hope it may contain a few sane men. There are none on the present staff, and I only know of one among the trustees. Raffles refrained from smiling as his dancing eyes met mine. I can understand your view, he said. I'm not sure that I don't share it to some extent. But it seems to me a duty to support a general movement like this, even if it doesn't take the direction or the shape of our own dreams. I suppose you yourself will give something, Nasmith? Give something? I, not a brass farthing, cried the implacable banker. To do so would be to stultify my whole position. I cordially and conscientiously disapprove of the whole thing, and shall use all my influence against it. No, my good sir. I not only don't subscribe myself, but I hope to be the means of nipping a good many subscriptions in the bud. I was probably the only one who saw the sudden and yet subtle change in raffles. The hard mouth, the harder eye. I at least might have foreseen the sequel then and there. But his quiet voice betrayed nothing, as he inquired whether Nasmith was going to speak at next night's meeting. Nasmith said he might, and certainly warned us what to expect. He was still fulminating when our train came in. Then we meet again at Philippi, cried raffles in Gaiadu. For you have been very frank with us all, Nasmith, and I'll be frank enough in my turn to tell you that I have every intention of speaking on the other side. It happened that raffles had been asked to speak by his old college friend, the new headmaster. Yet it was not at the school house that he and I were to stay, but at the house that we had both been in as boys. It also had changed hands. A wing had been added, and the double tier of tiny studies made brilliant with electric light. But the quad and the five courts did not look a day older. The ivy was no thicker round the study windows, and in one boy's castle we found the traditional print of Charing Cross Bridge, which had knocked about our studies ever since a son of the contractor first sold it when he left. Nay, more. There was the bald remnant of a stuffed bird, which had been my own daily care when it and I belonged to raffles. And when we all filed into prayers through the green base door, which still separated the master's part of the house from that of the boys, there was a small boy posted in the passage to give the sign of silence to the rest assembled in the hall, quite identically as in the dim old days. The picture was absolutely unchanged. It was only we who were out of it in body and soul. On our side of the base door, a fine hospitality and a finer flow of spirits were the order of the night. There was a sound representative assortment of quite young old boys, to whom ours was a prehistoric time, and in the trough of their modern chaff and chat, we old Stagers might well have been left far astern of the fun. Yet it was raffles who was the life and soul of the party, and that not by meretricious virtue of his cricket. There happened not to be another cricketer among us, and it was on their own subjects that raffles laughed with the lot in turn and in the lump. I never knew him in quite such form. I will not say he was a boy among them, but he was that rarer being, the man of the world who can enter absolutely into the fun and fervour of the salad age. My cares and regrets had never been more acute, but raffles seemed a man without either in his life. He was not, however, the hero of the old boys' match, and that was expected of him by all the school. There was a hush when he went in, a groan when he came out. I had no reason to suppose he was not trying. These things happened to the cricketer who plays out of his class. But when the great raffles went on to bowl and was hit all over the field, I was not so sure. It certainly failed to affect his spirits. He was more brilliant than ever at our hospitable board, and after dinner came the meeting at which he and Nasmyth were to speak. It was a somewhat frigid gathering until Nasmyth rose. We had all dined with our respective hosts, and then repaired to this business in cold blood. Many would look warm about it in their hearts. There is a certain amount of mild prejudice, and a greater amount of animal indifference, to be overcome in the opening speech. It is not for me to say whether this was successfully accomplished. I only know how the temperature of that meeting rose with Nipper Nasmyth. And I dare say, in all the circumstances of the case, his really was a rather vulgar speech. But it was certainly impassioned, and probably as purely instinctive as a denunciation of all the causes which appealed to the gullible many without imposing upon the cantankerous few. His arguments, it is true, were merely an elaboration of those with which he had favored some of us already, but they were pointed by a concise exposition of the several definite principles they represented, and barbed with a caustic rhetoric quite admirable in itself. In a word, the manner was worthy of the very foundation it sought to shake, or we had never swallowed such a matter without a murmur. As it was, there was a demonstration in the wilderness when the voice ceased crying. But we sat in the deeper silence when raffles rose to reply. I leaned forward not to lose a word. I knew my raffles so well that I felt almost capable of reporting his speech before I heard it. Never was I more mistaken even in him. So far from a jib for a jib and a taunt for a taunt, there was never softer answer than that which Ajay Raffles returned to Nipper Nasmyth before the staring eyes and startled ears of all assembled. He courteously but firmly refused to believe a word his old friend Nasmyth had said about himself. He had known Nasmyth for twenty years and never had he met a dog who barked so loud and bit so little. The fact was that he had far too kind a heart to bite at all. Nasmyth might get up and protest as loud as he liked. The speaker declared he knew him better than Nasmyth knew himself. He had the necessary defects of his great qualities. He was only too good a sportsman. He had a perfect passion for the weaker side. That alone led Nasmyth into such excesses of language as we had all heard from his lips that night. As for raffles, he concluded his far too genial remarks by predicting that whatever Nasmyth might say or think of the new fund, he would subscribe to it as handsomely as any of us, like the generous good chap that we all knew him to be. Even so did raffles disappoint the old boys in the evening as he had disappointed the school by day. We had looked to him for a noble railery, a lofty and loyal disdain, and he had fobbed us off with friendly personalities, not even in impeccable taste. Nevertheless, this light treatment of a grave offense went far to restore the natural amenities of the occasion. It was impossible even for Nasmyth to reply to it as he might to a more earnest onslaught. He could but smile sardonically and audibly undertake to prove raffles a false profit, and though subsequent speakers were less merciful the note was struck, and there was no more bad blood in the debate. There was plenty, however, in the veins of Nasmyth, as I was to discover for myself before the night was out. You might think that in the circumstances he would not have attended the headmaster's ball with which the evening ended. But that would be sadly to misjudge so perverse a creature as the notorious nipper. He was probably one of those who protest that there is nothing personal in their most personal attacks. Not that Nasmyth took this tone about raffles when he and I found ourselves cheek by jowl against the ballroom wall. He could forgive his franker critics, but not the friendly enemy who had treated him so much more gently than he deserved. I seem to have seen you with this great man raffles. Began Nasmyth as he overhauled me with his fighting eye. Do you know him well? Intimately. I remember now. You were with him when he forced himself upon me on the way down yesterday. He had to tell me who he was. Yet he talks as though we're old friends. You were in the upper sixth together. I rejoined, nettle'd by his tone. What does that matter? I'm glad to say I had too much self respect and too little respect for raffles ever to be a friend of his then. I knew too many of the things he did, said Nipper Nasmyth. His fluent insults had taken my breath, but in a lucky flash I saw my retort. You must have had special opportunities of observation living in the town, said I, and drew first blood between the long hair and the ragged beard. But that was all. So he really did get out at nights, remarked my adversary. You certainly give your friend away. What's he doing now? I let my eyes follow raffles round the room before replying. He was waltzing with a master's wife. Waltzing as he did everything else. Other couples seemed to melt before them, and the woman on his arm looked a radiant girl. I meant in town, or wherever he lives his mysterious life. Explained Nasmyth when I told him that he could see for himself. But his clever tone did not trouble me. It was his epithet that caused me to prick my ears, and I found some difficulty in following raffles right round the room. I thought everybody knew what he was doing. He's playing cricket most of his time, was my measured reply, and if it bore an extra touch of insolence I can honestly ascribe that to my nerves. And is that all he does for a living? Pursued my inquisitor keenly. You had better ask raffles himself, said I to that. It's a pity you didn't ask him in public at the meeting. But I was beginning to show temper in my embarrassment, and of course that made Nasmyth the more imperturbable. He might be following some disgraceful calling by the mystery you make of it, he exclaimed. And for that matter I call first class cricket a disgraceful calling when it's followed by men who ought to be gentlemen, but are really professionals in gentlemanly clothing. The present craze for gladiatorial athleticism I regard as one of the great evils of the age, but the thinly veiled professionalism of the so-called amateur is the greatest evil of that craze. Men play for the gentleman and are paid more than the players who walk out of another gate. In my time there was none of that. Amateurs were amateurs and sport was sport. There were no raffles as in the first class cricket then. I had forgotten raffles was a modern first class cricketer, that explains him. Rather than see my son such another, do you know what I'd prefer to see him? I neither knew nor cared. Yet a wretched premonitory fascination held me breathless till I was told. I'd prefer to see him a thief, said Nazmuth savagely, and when his eyes were done with me he turned upon his heel. So that ended that stage of my discomforture. It was only to give place to a worse. Was all this accident or fell design? Conscience had made a coward of me. And yet what reason had I to disbelieve the worst? We were pure wedding on the edge of an abyss. Sooner or later the false step must come and the pits swallow us. I began to wish myself back in London, and I did get back to my room in our old house. My dancing days were already over. There I had taken one resolution to which I remained as true as better men to better vows. There the painful association was no mere sense of personal unworthiness. I felt a thinking in my room of other dances, and was still smoking the cigarette which raffles had taught me to appreciate when I looked up to find him regarding me from the door. He had opened it as noiselessly as only raffles could open doors. And now he closed it in the same professional fashion. I missed Achilles hours ago, said he, and he's still sulking in his tent. I have been, I answered, laughing as he could always make me. But I'll chuck it if you stop and smoke. Our host doesn't mind. There's an ashtray provided for the purpose. I ought to be sulking between the sheets, but I'm ready to sit up with you till morning. We might do worse. But on the other hand, we might do still better, rejoined raffles, and for once he resisted the seductive Sullivan. As a matter of fact, it's morning now. In another hour it will be dawn. And where could day better dawn than in Warfield Woods, or along the Stockley Road, or even on the upper or the middle? I don't want to turn in any more than you do. I may as well confess that the whole showdown here has exalted me more than anything for years. But if we can't sleep, Bunny, let's have some fresh air instead. Has everybody gone to bed? I asked. Long ago. I was last in. Why? Only it might sound a little odd. Our turning out again, if they were to hear us. Raffles stood over me with a smile made of mischief and cunning. But it was the purest mischief imaginable, the most innocent and comic cunning. They shan't hear us at all, Bunny, said he. I mean to get out as I did in the good old nights. I've been spoiling for the chance ever since I came down. There's not the smallest harm in it now. And if you'll come with me, I'll show you how it used to be done. But I know, said I, who used to haul up the rope after you and let it down again to the minute? Raffles looked down on me from lowered lids over a smile too humorous to offend. My dear good Bunny, and do you suppose that even then I had only one way of doing a thing? I've had a spare loophole all my life. And when you're ready, I'll show you what it was when I was here. Take off those boots and carry your tennis shoes. Slip on another coat. Put out your light and I'll meet you on the landing in two minutes. He met me with uplifted finger and not a syllable. And downstairs he led me, stalking souls close against the skirting, two feet to each particular step. It must have seemed child's play to Raffles. The old precautions were obviously assumed from my entertainment. But I confess that to me it was all refreshingly exciting. For once without a risk of endurance if we came to grief, with scarcely a creek we reached the hall and could have walked out of the street door without danger or difficulty. But that would not do for Raffles. He must needs lead me into the boys part through the green bay's door. It took a deal of opening and shutting. But Raffles seemed to enjoy nothing better than these mock obstacles. And in a few minutes we were resting with sharp ears in the boys' hall. Through these windows, I whispered, when the clock over the piano had had matters its own way long enough to make our minds quite easy. How else? whispered Raffles as he opened the one on whose ledge our letters used to await us of a morning. And then through the quad and over the gate at the end, no talking bunny. There's a dormitory just overhead. But ours was in front you remember. And if they had ever seen me, I should have nipped back this way while they were watching the other. His finger was on his lips as we got out softly into the starlight. I remember how the gravel hurt as we left the smooth flagged margin of the house for the open quad. But the nearer of two long green seats, whereon you prepared your countstrew for the second school in the summer term, was mercifully handy. And once in our rubber souls we had no difficulty in scaling the gates beyond the fives courts. Moreover, we dropped into a very desert of a country road, nor saw a soul when we doubled back beneath the outer study windows, nor heard a footfall in the main street of the slumbering town. Our own fell like the night dews and the petals of the poet. But Raffles ran his arm through mine and would chatter and whispers as we went. So you and Nipper had a word, or was it words? I saw you out of the tail of my eye when I was dancing, and I heard you out of the tail of my ear. It sounded like words, Bunny, and I thought I caught my name. He's the most consistent man I know and the least altered from a boy. But he'll subscribe all right, you'll see, and be very glad I made him. I whispered back that I did not believe it for a moment. Raffles had not heard all Nazmouth had said of him. And neither would he listen to the little I meant to repeat to him. He would but reiterate a conviction so comarical to my mind that I interrupted in my turn to ask him what ground he had for it. I've told you already, said Raffles. I mean to make him. But how, I asked, and when and where? At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I'd see him, what a rabbit you are at a quotation. And I think that in the field of Philippi was where Caesar came to an end, but who gave old Brutus the tip I can't comprehend. You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny, but you ought to remember that. And I did vaguely, but I had no idea what it or Raffles meant as I plainly told him. The theatre of war, he answered. And here we are at the stage door. Raffles had stopped suddenly in his walk. It was the last dark hour of the summer night. But the light from a neighbouring lamppost showed me the look on his face as he turned. I think you also inquired when, he continued. Well then, this minute, if you'll give me a leg up. And behind him, scarcely higher than his head, and not even barred, was a wide window with a wire blind, and the name of Nazmouth, among others, lettered in gold upon the wire. You're never going to break in. This instant, if you'll help me, in five or ten minutes, if you won't. Surely you didn't bring the tools. He jingled them gently in his pocket. Not the whole outfit, Bunny, but you never know when you may entwant one or two. I'm only thankful I didn't leave the lot behind this time. I very nearly did. I must say I thought you would, coming down here. I said reproachfully. But you ought to be glad I didn't. He rejoined with a smile. It's going to mean old Nazmouth's subscription to the Founders Fund, and that's to be a big one, I promise you. The lucky thing is that I went so far as to bring my bunch of safe keys. Now, are you going to help me use them, or are you not? If so, now's your minute. If not, clear out and be. Not so fast, raffles, said I testily. You must have planned this before you came down, or you would never have brought all those things with you. My dear Bunny, they're part of my kit. I take them wherever I take my evening clothes. As to this party bank, I never even thought of it much less that it would become a public duty to draw a hundred or so without signing for it. That's all I shall touch, Bunny. I'm not on the make tonight. There's no risk in it, either. If I am caught, I shall simply sham champagne and stand the racket. It would be an obvious frolic after what happened at that meeting, and they will catch me if I stand talking here. You run away back to bed, unless you're quite determined to give old Brutus the tip. Now, we had barely been a minute whispering where we stood, and the whole street was still as silent as the tomb. To me, there seemed least danger in discussing the matter quietly on the spot. But even as he gave me my dismissal, Raffles turned and caught the sill above him, first with one hand and then with the other. His legs swung like a pendulum as he drew himself up with one arm, then shifted the position to the other hand, and very gradually worked himself waist high with the sill. But the sill was too narrow for him, and that was as far as he could get unaided. And it was as much as I could bear to see of a feat, which in itself might have hardened my conscience and softened my heart. But I had identified his doggerel verse at last. I am ashamed to say that it was part of a set of my very own writing in the school magazine of my time. So Raffles knew the stuff better than I did myself, and yet scorned to press his flattery to win me over. He had won me. In a second my rounded shoulders were a pedestal for those dangling feet, and before many more I heard the old metallic snap, followed by the raising of a sash so slowly and gently as to be almost inaudible to me listening just below. Raffles went through hands first, disappeared for an instant, then leaned out lowering his hands for me. Come on, Bunny, you're safer in than out. Hang on to the sill and let me get you under the arms. Now altogether, quietly does it, and over you come. No need to dwell on our proceedings in the bank. I myself had small part in the scene, being posted rather in the wings at the foot of the stairs leading to the private premises in which the manager had his domestic being. But I made my mind easy about him, for in the silence of my watch I soon detected a nasal note overhead, and it was resonant and aggressive as the man himself. Of Raffles, on the contrary, I heard nothing, for he had shut the door between us, and I was to warn him if a single sound came through. I need scarcely add that no warning was necessary during the twenty minutes we remained in the bank. Raffles afterward assured me that nineteen of them had been spent in filing one key, but one of his latest inventions was a little thick velvet bag in which he carried the keys, and this bag had two elastic mouths, which closed so tightly about either wrist that he could file away inside and scarcely hear it himself. As for these keys, they were clever counterfeits of typical patterns by two great safe-making firms, and Raffles had come by them in a manner all his own, which the criminal world may discover for itself. When he opened the door and beckoned me, I knew by his face that he had succeeded to his satisfaction, and by experience better than to question him on the point. Indeed, the first thing was to get out of the bank, for the stars were drowning in a sky of ink and water, and it was a comfort to feel that we could fly straight to our beds. I said so in whispers as Raffles cautiously opened our window and peeped out. In an instant his head was in, and for another I feared the worst. What was that, Bunny? No, you don't, my son. There's not a soul in sight that I can see. But you never know, and we may as well lay ascent while we're about it. Ready? Then follow me and never mind the window. With that he dropped softly into the street, and I after him, turning to the right instead of the left, and that at a brisk trot instead of the innocent walk which had brought us to the bank. Like mice we scampered past the great schoolroom, with its gable snipping a paler sky than ever, and the shadows melting even in the colonnade underneath. Masters' houses flitted by on the left, lesser landmarks on either side, and presently we were running our heads into the dawn, one under either hedge of the stockly road. Did you see that light in Nabs just now? cried Raffles as he led. No, why? I panted, nearly spent. It was in Nabs' dressing room. Yes? I've seen it there before, continued Raffles. He never was a good sleeper, and his ears reached to the street. I wouldn't like to say how often I was chased by him in the small hours. I believe he knew who it was toward the end, but Nab was not the man to accuse you of what he couldn't prove. I had no breath for comment, and on sped Raffles like a yacht before the wind, and on eye-blundered like a wary at sea, taking heavy weather all the way, and nearer foundering at every stride. Suddenly, to my deeper leaf, Raffles halted, but only to tell me to stop my pipes while he listened. It's all right, Bunny. He resumed, showing me a glowing face in the dawn. History's on its own tracks once more, and I'll bet you it's dear old Nab on ours. Come on, Bunny, run to the last gasp and leave the rest to me. I was past arguing, and away he went. There was no help for it but to follow as best I could. Yet I had vastly preferred to collapse on the spot and trust to Raffles' resource, as before very long I must. I had never enjoyed long wind, and the hours that we kept in town may well have aggravated the deficiency. Raffles, however, was in first-class training from first-class cricket, and he had no mercy on Nab or me. But the master himself was an old Oxford miler, who could still bear it better than I. Nay, as I flagged and stumbled, I heard him pounding steadily behind. Come on, come on, or he'll do us! cried Raffles shrilly over his shoulder, and a gruff sardonic laugh came back over mine. It was pearly morning now, but we had run into a shallow mist that took me by the throat and stabbed me to the lungs. I coughed and stumbled in my stride, until down I went, less by accident than to get it over, and so lay headlong in my tracks, and old Nab dealt me a verbal kick as he passed. You beast! he growled, as I have known him to growl it in form. But Raffles himself had abandoned the flight on hearing my downfall, and I was on hands and knees just in time to see the meeting between him and old Nab, and there stood Raffles in the silvery mist, laughing with his whole light heart, leaning back to get the full flavour of his mirth, and near me, sturdy old Nab, dour and grim, with beads of dew on the hoary beard that had been lamp-black in our time. So I've caught you at last, said he, after more years than I mean to count. Then you're luckier than we are, sir, answered Raffles, for I fear our man has given us the slip. Your man! echoed Nab, his bushy eyebrows had shot up, it was as much as I could do to keep my own in their place. We were indulging in the chase ourselves, explained Raffles, and one of us has suffered for his zeal, as you can see. It is even possible that we too have been chasing a perfectly innocent man. Not to say a reformed character, said our pursuer, Dryley. I suppose you don't mean a member of the school. He added, pinking his man suddenly as of your, with all the old barbed acumen. But Raffles was now his match. That would be carrying Reformation rather far, sir. No, as I say, I may have been mistaken in the first instance, but I had put out my light and was looking out of the window when I saw a fellow behaving quite suspiciously. He was carrying his boots and creeping along in his socks, which must be why you never heard him, sir. They make less noise than rubber souls even, that is, they must, you know. Well, Bunny had just left me, so I hauled him out when we both crept down to play detective. No sign of the fellow. We had a look in the colonnade. I thought I heard him, and that gave us no end of a hunt for nothing. But just as we were leaving he came padding past under our noses. And that's where we took up the chase. Where he'd been in the meantime I have no idea. Very likely he'd done no harm. But it seemed worthwhile finding out. He had too good a start, though, and poor Bunny had too bad a wind. You should have gone on and let me rip, said I, climbing to my feet at last. As it is, however, we will all let the other fellow do so. Settled nab and a genial growl. And you two had better turn into my house and have something to keep the morning cold out. You may imagine with what a lacquery we complied. And yet I'm bound to confess that I never liked nab at school. I still remember my term in his form. He had a caustic tongue and fine assortment of damaging epithets, most of which were leveled at my devoted skull during those three months. I now discovered that he also kept a particularly mellow Scotch whiskey, an excellent cigar, and a fund of anecdote of which a mordant wit was the worthy bursar. Enough to add that he kept us laughing in his study until the chapel bells rang him out. As for Raffles, he appeared to mead if he'll far more compunction for the fable which he had been compelled to foist upon one of the old masters than for the immeasurably graver offense against society and another old boy. This, indeed, did not worry him at all. And the story was received next day with absolute credulity on all sides. Nazmuth himself was the first to thank us both for our spirited effort on his behalf. And the incident had the ironic effect of establishing an immediate entente cordiale between Raffles and his very latest victim. I must confess, however, that for my own part I was thoroughly uneasy during the old boy's second innings when Raffles made a selfish score instead of standing by me to tell his own story in his own way. There was never any knowing with what new detail he was about to embellish it, and I still have to receive full credit for the tact that it required to follow his erratic lead convincingly. Seldom have I been more thankful than when our train started next morning, and the poor, unsuspecting Nazmuth himself waved us a last farewell from the platform. Lucky we weren't staying at Nabs, said Raffles, as he lit a Sullivan and opened his daily mail at its report of the robbery. There was one thing Nab would have spotted like the downy old bird he always was and will be. What was that? The front door must have been found duly barred and bolted in the morning, and yet we let them assume that we came out that way. Nab would have pounced on the point, and by this time we might have been nabbed ourselves. It was but a little over a hundred sovereigns that Raffles had taken, and of course he had resolutely eschewed any and every form of paper money. He posted his own first contribution of twenty-five pounds to the Founders Fund immediately on our return to town, before rushing off to more first-class cricket, and I gathered that the rest would follow piecemeal as he deemed it safe. By an odd coincidence, however, a mysterious but magnificent donation of a hundred guineas was almost simultaneously received in notes by the Treasurer of the Founders Fund, from one who simply signed himself Old Boy. The Treasurer happened to be our late host, the new man at our old house, and he wrote to congratulate Raffles on what he was pleased to consider a direct result of the latter's speech. I did not see the letter that Raffles wrote in reply, but in due course I heard the name of the mysterious contributor. He was said to be no other than Nipper Nazmouth himself. I asked Raffles if it was true. He replied that he would ask Old Nipper point-blank if he came up as usual to the varsity match, and if they had the luck to meet. And not only did this happen, but I had the greater luck to be walking round the ground with Raffles when we encountered our shabby friend in front of the pavilion. My dear fellow! cried Raffles. I heard it was you who gave that hundred guineas by stealth to the very movement you denounced. Don't deny it and don't blush to find it fame. Listen to me. There is a great lot in what you said, but it's the kind of thing we ought all to back, whether we strictly approve of it in our hearts or not. Exactly, Raffles, but the fact is, I know what you're going to say, don't say it. There's not one in a thousand who would do as you've done, and not one in a million who would do it anonymously. But what makes you think I did it, Raffles? Everybody is saying so. You will find it all over the place when you get back. You will find yourself the most popular man down there, Nazmyth. I never saw a nobler embarrassment than that of this awkward, ungainly, cantankerous man. All his angles seem to have been smoothed away. There was something quite human in the flushed, undecided, wistful face. I never was popular in my life, he said. I don't want to buy my popularity now, to be perfectly candid with you, Raffles. Don't, I can't stop to hear. They're ringing the bell. But you shouldn't have been angry with me for saying you were a generous good chap, Nazmyth, when you were one all the time. Goodbye, old fellow. But Nazmyth detained us a second more. His hesitation was at an end. There was a sudden new light in his face. Was I? He cried. Then I'll make it two hundred and damn the odds. Raffles was a thoughtful man as we went to our seats. He saw nobody would acknowledge no remark. Neither did he attend to the cricket for the first half hour after lunch. Instead he eventually invited me to come for a stroll on the practice ground, where, however, we found two chairs aloof from the fascinating throng. I am not often sorry, Bunny, as you know. He began. But I have been sorry since the interval. I've been sorry for poor old Nippon Nazmyth. Did you see the idea of being popular dawn upon him for the first time in his life? I did. But you had nothing to do with that, my dear man. Raffles shook his head over me as our eyes met. I had everything to do with it. I tried to make him tell the meanest lie. I made sure he would. And for that matter he nearly did. Then at the last moment he saw how to hedge things with his conscience, and his second hundred will be a real gift. You mean under his own name? And with his own free will. My good Bunny, is it possible you don't know what I did with the hundred we drew from that bank? I knew what you were going to do with it, said I. I didn't know you had actually got further than the twenty-five you told me you were sending as your own contribution. Raffles rose abruptly from his chair. And you actually thought that came out of his money. Naturally. In my name. I thought so. Raffles stared at me inscrutably for some moments, and for some more at the great white numbers over the grandstand. We may as well have another look at the cricket, said he. It's difficult to see the board from here. But I believe there's another man out. End of Chapter Five